Plans to lease a port on the Swedish island of Gotland to a Russian-backed gas pipeline project are set to be cancelled over security fears.
Ministers and military leaders in Sweden leaned on the council of the Baltic Sea island at a crisis meeting on Tuesday over the application by the Nord Stream 2 consortium.
The government has been alarmed by increasing Russian air and sea activity and in September installed a garrison of 150 troops on Gotland, which was heavily defended during the Cold War.
Gotland, which has devolved powers, has the final say over customers for its port at Slite but officials said yesterday that they were minded to reject the approach. “We will align with the government,” Tommy Gardell, chairman of the Gotland council committee handling the decision, said before a meeting expected today.
A second port targeted for Nord Stream 2 in the Baltic, at Karlshamn on the southern tip of the Swedish mainland, said it had postponed a decision.
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Debate about leasing the ports to the majority-Russian controlled company has been so fierce that Moscow’s ambassador to Stockholm insisted last week his country had “no plans whatsoever to invade Sweden”. Sweden will reintroduce military service in 2018, eight years after it was scrapped. The country is not a member of Nato but there have been calls to join.
Nord Stream 2 is a project to lay twin pipelines along almost the same route as the original Nord Stream pipes, which opened in 2011 and 2012 to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany.
Margot Wallström, the foreign minister, and Peter Hultqvist, the defence minister, met representatives from Gotland and Karlshamn in Stockholm to “express disapproval”. “The government sees the use of the ports as affecting Swedish defence policy interests negatively,” Ms Wallström said. Constitutional law would be reviewed to see if Stockholm should have more powers to safeguard national interests, she added.
The total at stake for the regions is between 25 and 60 million kronor (£2.8 to £6.7 million). Stefan Löfven, the prime minister, said the government was willing to discuss compensation.